“I don’t know how you guys do it.” We get that a lot, I mean A LOT from people when they hear we’re doing this long-long distance relationship thing. Especially when we tell them that it’s been going on for five years. Sometimes it sounds like a compliment and other it seems like a disbelieving challenge. No matter how it’s intended it always hits our ears with a tinge of pain for in those days when we are together, those fleeting moments that come sparsely through the year the last thing we want to think about is the times that we spend apart.
That is unfortunately how we spend the vast majority of our time, often eight months out of a year we are six time zones away from one another, a greater distance than opposite coasts of the United States. Even just saying that we’re an ocean apart does not do it justice since there is still a great deal my continent left to travel once we cross the waves. As one might expect such a vast span of separation makes for a great number of difficulties which must be overcome to make our relationship work, we, in fact, concede that without certain marvels of the modern age we would not be in love, not be engaged, not be the reasonably happy and healthy individuals we are. Still, it sucks, big time.
Take the last couple of days, Reg tells me she’s going to be home on Friday night and that she’ll call me. It matters that she’s at home for this short duration because she cannot ring me on her cell phone without incurring a large surcharge as I can’t call her from my mobile, even our landlines require phone cards to not break our banks. So while she is home for a day or so she has to catch me at an hour when she’s free as well as myself which is difficult when I work 7.30 am ( 1:30pm in Ireland ) until 5pm ( 11pm there). On this particular Friday I ended up working until 6 and in the moments when my phone is buzzing and buzzing in my pocket around 5:30 I’m unable to break away from my business for even a moment to answer it. She leaves me a message, a long and sleepy one that makes me feel her love and longing drip over me like warm honey.
Saturday I have to work too and as things just happen to turn out I’m in the shower in the morning when she calls again. This time she doesn’t leave a message. I don’t have time or a card to call her back but I do check my face book to see if she’s messaged me there. She did, it reads; “Hi, please be online.” When you’ve communicated so many intimacies over text as we have you can pick up on subtext like it’s spelled out in big bold capital letters. Knowing that she’s hurting and that it’s probably somehow related to the wedding dress fitting she had scheduled, doesn’t make my already assuredly shitty day any better. Throughout all of the yelling and insults I endure I want only to hear her voice even if it’s crying or venting or hurting. We’ll have to wait until tomorrow when we plan to have our weekly skype date-her good idea- and actually see each other’s faces, the emotions and look into each other’s eyes while saying the sweet things that are in our hearts.
It’s not the same though, it never is. It has been said the I love the best in the littlest ways. In the grasp of a hand or a heartfelt hug and just the same nothing comforts me like her head on my chest and the feel of her lips on mine. These are the hallmarks of a relationship that so many take for granted when they are but a phone call and a short drive away, the reinforcements of love which we fall back on when we are unsure of our worth. But these times apart are what make us a strong couple, because we cannot be there for one another at every moment of weakness and doubt we find the resilience in ourselves to carry on and keep our individual identities strong. In fact all of our relationship is a practice in personal endurance that we chose to put ourselves through for the virtue of true love.
Love is my faith in god replaced with something not quite tangible but still there for me to experience, to enjoy and to be elated by when I give myself wholly to it. True faith takes a commitment beyond the desire for rewards, it asks you to hurt so that it can comfort you in those times of darkness and emptiness. You have to be willing to embrace the pain of separation to make it through a long distance relationship such as this. That’s where the phrase ‘I miss you’ comes into it. ‘I miss you’ takes on the same meaning as ‘I love you’ when we cannot express that love like we mean to, as we yearn to, as we hope to some day be fortunate enough do on a daily basis. ‘I miss you’ is an acknowledgement that we experience the same sense of being incomplete when we are away from one another, it is a confession of that weak feeling that overcomes us in the absence of each other, that very weakness that we feel we must keep contained from the world at large. ‘I miss you’ is what we share, the tie that binds us over the miles and hours which technology can only try to overcome because ‘I miss you’ means ‘you’re worth it and you make it better’ in the cryptography of our communications.
But don’t get me wrong, there is nothing that will make me happier than to forget what it’s like to miss her, to wake up every day next holding her and tell her that I love her every night while she falls asleep. But still there will be times when we are separated by life and the pulls of responsibility, in those times I will call or text Reg my wife and with a silly little smile I will say that I miss her. I know she’ll understand just what that means because she’s been through everything that I have. She understands me down to my heartbeat from one quarter of the world away.
Sunday, March 10, 2013
Monday, February 11, 2013
The Biggest Little Things
If someone were to ask me what my two favorite adjectives are, and owning to the fact that I have many literary friends this is not so farfetched an occurrence, I would answer, after a bit of deliberation, “big and small.” I know that there are many, many wonderful and intelligent words to chose and these simple bits of speech don’t seem like much but while magnanimous and supercalifragilisticexpialidocious are impressive in their own right they are rather limited in their application. Big and small are surprisingly versatile words carrying with them so many connotations that you can practically insert them into any syntax and come away with a workable sentence.
Take people for example, like me you may be a big person, over six feet tall, broad shoulders, shoes that would fit many basketball players. My friend Sam is quite the opposite, adorably munchkin-esque she’s easy to loft in the course of a hug and in by best estimation needs a step stool to reach the high shelf in the kitchen. However, an equally valid statement would be that she is a big person; one who is kind to all others, morally strong, and capable of overcoming all types of obstacles while coming out stronger on the other end. Large men can also be quite small in how they treat others or by flipping out over minor problems, people of great importance are often prone to consider only themselves and be very short with those they perceive as below them. In the right context and inflection calling someone a ‘big man’ can be just as derogatory as ‘little lady’ which, said with a gleam in the eye of one’s husband is a term of kindliest endearment.
A friend of mine once asked me for a huge favor which turned out to be passing her a pack of cigarettes from across a table, yet one should always be wary when someone asks to borrow ‘a little money’. It’s all relative, really, even the biggest of big dogs is miniscule when compared to say, a small planet. And while we’re on the astronomical subject super massive black holes and world killer asteroids are nothing to make a big deal out of especially when compared to such little things as the AIDS virus or flesh eating bacteria, big problems if you come into contact with them. Oppenheimer split a dainty little atom and ended up leveling cities with nuclear fire from the skies, at the trinity test he took bets on whether or not the explosion would ignite the earth’s atmosphere thus destroying all of existence. I guess he just had a good sense of humor about things.
I guess the point I’m winding towards is that I made one of the biggest purchases of my life yesterday. It was a small thing in the grand scheme, just a little bit of platinum, a precious little stone, small enough to drop through a hole in your pocket or get washed down the drainpipe of a sink. It’s not as big as a car let alone a house, it’s not big like some people buy small islands to vacation on or multinational corporations that get bought out in billion dollar mergers. Hell, even as jewelry goes it’s no hope diamond. It’s a little, simple thing, that engagement ring. But at this juncture in my life, and foreseeable for the rest of my days buying that ring is the biggest, most important decision I’ve ever made.
It didn’t cost me a lot either, less than the three months salary some would call standard, and certainly nowhere near the seven figures that sheiks and NBA stars would consider mandatory. Even among the symbols of eternal love and devotion we’d looked at over the past year it’s not the most expensive, and in carat weight it’s really on the low end. It’s not flashy, it’s not studded with diamond chips to make a bigger impression and it’s nothing like the royal wedding ring that came into vogue recently. It is just the one she wanted, the one we both liked, the one we found together and all of those criteria carry a lot more weight with her than the relative bling of the thing.
Maybe that’s the proper allegory for our whole relationship because as much as the long flights over the vast Atlantic ocean and nights spent romancing in top floor hotel rooms are well and good as big shows of affection it’s so much more the little things we love to do for one another that make our love deep. I can’t count the cups of tea I’ve fetched her or the number of biscuits I’ve brought home from the store without her asking. She once told me the most romantic thing I’d ever done was writing little hearts and ‘luv u’s in ketchup next to my chips. As for me I melt when she rests her head on my chest and get all warm inside when we silently mouth ‘I love you’ to one another as though to say it aloud would shatter the spell those words put us under.
So over the next nine months or so we’re going to be hashing out all of the little details of our big day. We’ll have to decide on bow ties, cuff links, party favors, center pieces, church music, cake flavors, we need bible readings and locations for photo shoots, we need all of this and dozens of other considerations sorted and settled and booked and paid for. Mind bogglingly we find ourselves in this situation because of one kiss stolen in the middle of the night what seems like a long time ago. And all of this is only leading up to two little words, the biggest, most important words we’re ever going to say. Five years and thousands of dollars are leading up to that big moment where we look into each others eyes and say that simple, small sentence: “I do.”
Take people for example, like me you may be a big person, over six feet tall, broad shoulders, shoes that would fit many basketball players. My friend Sam is quite the opposite, adorably munchkin-esque she’s easy to loft in the course of a hug and in by best estimation needs a step stool to reach the high shelf in the kitchen. However, an equally valid statement would be that she is a big person; one who is kind to all others, morally strong, and capable of overcoming all types of obstacles while coming out stronger on the other end. Large men can also be quite small in how they treat others or by flipping out over minor problems, people of great importance are often prone to consider only themselves and be very short with those they perceive as below them. In the right context and inflection calling someone a ‘big man’ can be just as derogatory as ‘little lady’ which, said with a gleam in the eye of one’s husband is a term of kindliest endearment.
A friend of mine once asked me for a huge favor which turned out to be passing her a pack of cigarettes from across a table, yet one should always be wary when someone asks to borrow ‘a little money’. It’s all relative, really, even the biggest of big dogs is miniscule when compared to say, a small planet. And while we’re on the astronomical subject super massive black holes and world killer asteroids are nothing to make a big deal out of especially when compared to such little things as the AIDS virus or flesh eating bacteria, big problems if you come into contact with them. Oppenheimer split a dainty little atom and ended up leveling cities with nuclear fire from the skies, at the trinity test he took bets on whether or not the explosion would ignite the earth’s atmosphere thus destroying all of existence. I guess he just had a good sense of humor about things.
I guess the point I’m winding towards is that I made one of the biggest purchases of my life yesterday. It was a small thing in the grand scheme, just a little bit of platinum, a precious little stone, small enough to drop through a hole in your pocket or get washed down the drainpipe of a sink. It’s not as big as a car let alone a house, it’s not big like some people buy small islands to vacation on or multinational corporations that get bought out in billion dollar mergers. Hell, even as jewelry goes it’s no hope diamond. It’s a little, simple thing, that engagement ring. But at this juncture in my life, and foreseeable for the rest of my days buying that ring is the biggest, most important decision I’ve ever made.
It didn’t cost me a lot either, less than the three months salary some would call standard, and certainly nowhere near the seven figures that sheiks and NBA stars would consider mandatory. Even among the symbols of eternal love and devotion we’d looked at over the past year it’s not the most expensive, and in carat weight it’s really on the low end. It’s not flashy, it’s not studded with diamond chips to make a bigger impression and it’s nothing like the royal wedding ring that came into vogue recently. It is just the one she wanted, the one we both liked, the one we found together and all of those criteria carry a lot more weight with her than the relative bling of the thing.
Maybe that’s the proper allegory for our whole relationship because as much as the long flights over the vast Atlantic ocean and nights spent romancing in top floor hotel rooms are well and good as big shows of affection it’s so much more the little things we love to do for one another that make our love deep. I can’t count the cups of tea I’ve fetched her or the number of biscuits I’ve brought home from the store without her asking. She once told me the most romantic thing I’d ever done was writing little hearts and ‘luv u’s in ketchup next to my chips. As for me I melt when she rests her head on my chest and get all warm inside when we silently mouth ‘I love you’ to one another as though to say it aloud would shatter the spell those words put us under.
So over the next nine months or so we’re going to be hashing out all of the little details of our big day. We’ll have to decide on bow ties, cuff links, party favors, center pieces, church music, cake flavors, we need bible readings and locations for photo shoots, we need all of this and dozens of other considerations sorted and settled and booked and paid for. Mind bogglingly we find ourselves in this situation because of one kiss stolen in the middle of the night what seems like a long time ago. And all of this is only leading up to two little words, the biggest, most important words we’re ever going to say. Five years and thousands of dollars are leading up to that big moment where we look into each others eyes and say that simple, small sentence: “I do.”
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